Cho Kuk: "90 Searches of My Family ... 'Zero' Searches in Han Donghoon's Daughter's 'Fake Credentials' Probe"

Park Eunjung: "Kim Hyekyung also faced 130 searches"
Han Donghoon: "The Democratic Party distorts a case cleared of wrongdoing"

Cho Kuk, head of the Innovation Policy Research Institute of the Rebuilding Korea Party, criticized the investigation into Independent lawmaker Han Donghoon, saying that he and his family had been investigated dozens of times over allegations of irregularities involving his children's college admissions, while Han faced only a slap on the wrist despite allegations that his daughter had fabricated credentials.

On October 12, Cho wrote on Facebook: "The Yoon Suk Yeol-Han Donghoon prosecution conducted about 130 searches of Kim Hye-kyung, the wife of President Lee Jae-myung, and about 90 searches related to the Cho Kuk family. By contrast, there were zero searches in the cases involving Kim Keon Hee and Han Donghoon."

Independent lawmaker Han Donghoon. Reporter Yoon Dongju

Cho's post is believed to have been referring to the recent allegations that prosecutors had buried the case involving Han's daughter. According to the office of Yoon Kun-young, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker, Han was not subjected to a compulsory investigation over allegations that his daughter had fabricated credentials, including ghostwritten papers and inflated claims about volunteer work, when he was a candidate for justice minister in May 2022.

Police are alleged to have sent only official requests for cooperation to domestic and foreign institutions while investigating the case, and the prosecution is alleged to have returned it without forwarding it. Yoon criticized the investigation as "a textbook example of favoritism: they dragged their feet without ever seeking a search warrant, then decided not to refer the case to prosecutors."

Park Eun-jung, a lawmaker from the Rebuilding Korea Party, also pointed out during a parliamentary audit in October 2025 that prosecutors had decided not to indict Kim Keon Hee in the investigation into allegations of stock price manipulation involving Deutsch Motors without even seizing her phone or other belongings. "They conducted 130 searches over allegations that Ms. Kim Hye-kyung misused a corporate credit card," she said.

Citing facts revealed in past parliamentary audits and elsewhere, Cho was effectively arguing that investigative agencies, including the prosecution and police, had conducted "protective investigations" into cases involving the families of former President Yoon and Han, while subjecting him and the President's family to "fishing expeditions."

On Facebook that day, Han vigorously denied the allegations about his daughter's fabricated credentials, which had resurfaced for the first time in four years. He criticized the Democratic Party, which had raised allegations of a shoddy investigation, saying, "They're taking things out of context and distorting a case that was already investigated by the police, reviewed by the Investigation Review Committee, and cleared of wrongdoing." He also released the statement of reasons for the decision not to indict in the case, in which he, his wife, attorney Jin Eun-jung, and his daughter were accused of obstruction of business and other offenses. He said the case had been cleared because his daughter "had consistently done volunteer work, and there was no forgery or false information."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.